ou might say Oliver Tang is the graduate student of the future.

Tang is pursuing his doctorate in biological sciences, but most days you will find him hard at work in the high-tech “clean rooms” of the University at Albany’s Institute for Materials, a renowned resource for the microelectronics industry.

Tang is actually working on a problem that spans the worlds of biology and advanced materials. He is part of a team that is developing a new kind of tuberculosis-detection device, a tester that can be used, particularly in developing countries, to quickly and easily identify TB.

The project is a new direction for the Institute. But it is also a natural application for the Institute’s technological savvy and facilities, and it exemplifies the increasingly interdisciplinary nature of many high-tech research projects.

“I saw this as a very interesting opportunity,” says Tang, who did his undergraduate work at China’s Nanjing University in a program that encourages interdisciplinary research in basic sciences. “I have learned to use the analytical equipment and fabrication tools at the Institute, and now I am learning computer applications for use in simulations of devices we are designing.”

With facilities valued at more than $100 million, the Institute boasts the only pilot prototyping facility at any university in the world for the current standard in computer chip design, the 200mm, or 8-inch, wafer.

UAlbany Institute for Materials Director James Castracane with a 200mm, or 8-inch wafer, the current standard in computer chip design.

“he same equipment, expertise and manufacturing techniques used to deposit and etch layers on a silicon substrate to make a computer chip can be applied to a wide range of other applications ranging from flat-panel displays to fuel cells, nanostructures, optical devices, new communications devices and bio-sensors,” says Institute Director of Technology James Castracane. “And that is precisely what we are doing.”

The TB tester project, funded by a $750,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health to InterScience, Inc. of Troy, N.Y., the prime contractor, is a collaborative effort among Inter-Science, UAlbany, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine (AECOM) of Yeshiva University and the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center. Both the TB project and another collaborative project which aims to develop a “laboratory on a chip” reflect the Institute’s growing strength in the exciting new field of “BioMEMS.”

MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems) technology is the marriage between traditional microelectronics and mechanical systems to produce a physical device such as the sensor used in air bag deployment. BioMEMS technology applies microdevices to biological and medical problems, and, by its very nature, requires scientific teams with expertise across a wide range of fields.

The TB tester is an outgrowth of fundamental biochemical research begun by scientists from Albert Einstein College to develop faster and better diagnoses of TB infection.

Using DNA recombination techniques, AECOM scientists have developed luciferase reporter mycobacteriophages (LRM), assays that emit light when they interact with live TB bacteria in a sample of saliva. LRM, known more simply as reporter phages, can also identify drug-resistant strains of TB. In less than a day, the LRM technique can provide a TB diagnosis, a major improvement over traditional methods requiring a minimum of a week.

Initially, the effectiveness of the LRM technique was demonstrated by exposing film in a black box containing an array of cultures that had been treated with different drugs. But before the technique can be widely applied, scientists must develop a versatile luminescence detection tool, and that is the focus of researchers at InterScience Inc., a technology development company, in collaboration with Institute scientists.

A candidate design for the disposable-type cartridge used in the detection device and an area of a prototype photographed with scanning electron microscopy.

“ur goal is to make a device that uses digital imaging technology to rapidly assess luminescence, and that works both for clinical applications and in a laboratory research environment,” says InterScience researcher Michelle Simkulet, principal investigator of the project.

InterScience is developing the imaging system, the intelligent computer algorithm, and the overall integration of the TB detection system while Castracane and Tang at UAlbany’s Institute for Materials develop a disposable-type testing cartridge that allows for rapid preparation of a sample for testing in the system.

“The idea is that a sputum sample would be placed in the main mixing chamber of the cartridge, which would already contain premixed reagents and media that would be released into the main mixing chamber upon placement into the measurement system,” says Castracane.

In a second project, the Institute is collaborating with the University of Missouri-Columbia and the University of Louisville to develop a “laboratory on a microchip” for measuring how cells respond to toxins, drugs and other stimuli. It is supported by a $900,000 grant from the National Science Foundation.

“With our Institute’s fabrication capabilities, we can make big arrays — hundreds or thousands — of micro- or nano-wells into which we put single cells and then do the measurements,” says Castracane. “When fully developed, our microchip-based approach will make possible experiments that would be unthinkable in the past, such as massive screening of thousands of possible drugs that target ion channels.”